


Locked Up

by Weevilo707



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Denial, Falling In Love, M/M, Retcon Timeline, Slow Build, dave isolates himself a lot, davekat - Freeform, karkat just wants to help, small panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 17:46:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4573881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave had always been the one best prepared for the game. He was able to handle the shit it threw at them and push it down a lot better than everyone else could. </p><p>It might have fucked up everything else about him, but that didn't matter. </p><p>He was fine. </p><p>He was always fucking fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked Up

Things were not really going how Dave had expected them to.

The first couple of days after meeting up with everyone on the meteor had been hectic enough to keep busy. Having to set up enough space for everyone to have their own rooms and trying to work out all the interspecies living kinks.

There was enough arguing over what and how to cook and if godtiers even needed to eat and therefore shouldn’t have a say in the matter (as far as Dave was concerned eating was still definitely on the to do list. Rose and Vriska both agreed with him, so that was settled pretty quickly,) to keep everyone’s minds off what they’d all just gone through.

It didn’t take long for all that to settle, however. Dave was surprised by just how fast everyone managed to buddy up. Rose and Kanaya being glued at the hip was something he saw coming, yeah, but he’d kind of thought they’d be coyer about it. What he hadn’t seen coming was Terezi starting to spend all her time with Vriska. He sort of thought Vriska wouldn’t even be alive to you know, hang out with.

Terezi told them that John, although not normal John, a John who looked a lot older for some reason, had come and punched Vriska out so that Terezi didn’t have to kill her. According to this John, he was following orders from a future Terezi.

As the resident time guy, Dave still had no fucking clue how the hell this was possible. John didn’t have time powers, and everyone who was there said he hadn’t used a time travel device. Just that he appeared and disappeared in a flash of blue. As far as he could tell though, this did not feel like a doomed timeline, so he’d just take it for what it’s worth.

Putting his trust in future John and future Terezi didn’t seem like the worst place to put it, after all.

Things really seemed to slow down after the first couple of weeks though, to the point where it was hard as fuck to figure out how much time had passed at all. Dave found himself spending a lot of time with the mayor or lounging about in the commons room or in his own room.

Dave wasn’t exactly sure when Karkat started showing up as well.

He did know that at first Karkat would stay at the edge of the room while he and the mayor would work on the ever ongoing expansion of Can Town. He’d make a lot of comments about it being ‘for wigglers’ and how ‘he couldn’t fathom how rotten one’s thinkpan had to be to find stacking cans amusing.’

Dave would tell him not to diss on the mayor and that he really can’t knock this shit until he tries it.

By the time Karkat finally caved and joined them Dave had a mile long list of construction projects for the troll to take on. Karkat completely ignored it and built a movie theater and some weird troll soldier camp instead.

If Dave had to guess, he’d say by five months into their three year trip hanging out with Karkat had become a pretty much daily occurrence. 

Karkat was not at all like he thought he would be either. Well, okay he kind of was. He was still a loud shouty douchebag with issues out the ass. That just wasn’t all he was, not by a long shot. 

He was loud, yeah, and it had taken Dave a while to recognize when he was yelling and when he was just talking in a loud voice. That sounded fucking stupid, but there was a big difference. He was pretty sure Karkat didn’t even realize how loud he was being most of the time. It was like he constantly had headphones in with the volume just a bit too high.

He was definitely a douchebag, but that really wasn’t something Dave could hold against him. Dave was just as much of one and there wasn’t anything that was going to change that fact.

Dave also wasn’t too sure if he could get on him about his issues either. By now they were all pretty fucked up in their own ways.

Despite the absolute crawl time had taken, the one year mark still seemed to sneak up on him.

When Rose told him that morning that it’d been exactly one year since they started off on the meteor and they wanted to have a general meeting, he nodded along and said he’d be there. He tried his best to ignore the sinking feeling that started in his chest when he thought back on that day.

During the meeting he managed to get distracted enough to completely forget the unease from the morning. It wasn’t that the meeting was riveting or any of that shit. It was mostly just Vriska and Rose droning on and on about bullshit he wasn’t really listening to.

Nah, what got his mind off of that unnerving feeling was when he managed to grab Rose’s book and pen while her back was turned about halfway through the meeting. He started doodling in it at random (it mostly consisted of badly drawn dicks, let’s be honest here) when Karkat joined in on his artistic escapade. He was leaning into Dave’s shoulder as they both crouched over the book as if that would keep everyone else from noticing what they were doing.

They only had one pen so they had to grab it back and forth from each other, but that just added onto how hilarious this whole thing was.

For over an hour after the meeting Dave couldn’t stop focusing on how warm the parts of his body that Karkat had been pressing against were. Karkat was a really warm guy though. He said it was because of his blood, and that the higher up the hemospectrum you get the colder someone is. Dave was half tempted to test this out by going around feeling up the resident trolls, but he decided that pissing off all the dangerous ladies would not be the best move.

Even if he’d been inclined to, which he wasn’t in any fucking way, feeling up Gamzee was also an impossibility, seeing as he hadn’t see the guy since they stepped foot on the meteor.

It wasn’t until the last of the heat from Karkat faded away did the last of his distractions leave as well and Dave found himself thinking back on that day.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about it. Hell, it was practically half of all topics on this damn rock. The other half being what to do in the new session. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Everyone went through shit that day but it’d been over a year now. It was fucked up and everyone had hated it and while it was definitely the worst thing he’d ever been through, it wasn’t by much.

He’d gotten through it pretty fucking fine, when it came right down to it. He’d been the most prepared for the kind of fuckery the gamed pulled and that helped him push any of the distress down better than the others. 

Karkat still cried a lot. That was probably the most shocking thing about him at first. He didn’t care if there were other people around when he cried either, he just did it. It was happening less as time passed, but Dave had definitely seen him sheading a few years after passing through a dreambubble once or twice this past month.

Rose talked to Kanaya about this sort of shit more than to him, but he knew she still had nightmares. They all did. He’d even seen her alchemize a few bottles of wine once or twice late at night because she said it helped her get to sleep faster. Terezi and Vriska were doing their whole moirail thing to get through it.

It was obvious just how much everyone needed each other to get through the aftermath of what the game put them through.

He didn’t need any of that shit though.

He just needed to be left alone sometimes.

Dave hadn’t meant to stay in his room for three days. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d done something like that, far from it, but it was the first in quite a while. He had enough snacks stashed away to last him at least a week, a week and a half if he rationed it, and while he wasn’t planning on going through the entire stockpile he figured if it was there he might as well use it.

On the third day he was jolted out of his bed by loud banging on his door.

“Strider you open the fuck up this instant I know you’re in there!” Karkat’s voice yelled through the metal of the door. Dave untangled himself from the blanket cocoon that had come with him when he fell as he answered.

“Try not to blow an artery and wait a single second man,” he said, excavating his legs from their tomb.

“I’ve waited a second and yet the door, by god it’s still closed! Well will you look at that, maybe I will just blow a casket at this stunning turn of events if you don’t hurry the ever loving fuck up and let me in god damn it,” Karkat shouted. Dave rolled his eyes as he made his way across the room, finally opening the door.

“Dude, relax for like five minutes,” he said, taking in the sight of the troll in front of him.

There was a plate of eggs, toast and scrapple in one of his hands, and a glass of juice in the other.

“How were you knocking on my door?” the words blurted out of Dave’s mouth before he could think about what he was saying. Karkat pushed his way into the room and put the items down on the makeshift desk against the wall.

“I was kicking it,” he answered, and Dave had to stifle a laugh.

“Alright, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the food, but what the fuck?” he asked. Karkat was practically growling when he rounded on Dave.

“You have been holed up in here for three of your human days and I fucking know you have not bothered to eat a decent meal in that time,” he snapped. Dave managed to stay as nonchalant as possible as he shrugged and ate a slice of scrapple.

“I have enough food. If I was hungry I’d come out man,” he said. “Did you cook this?” Dave added on, Karkat shaking his head.

“Fuck no. I don’t know how to handle your weird ass food. Rose did,” he explained. Yeah okay, that made a lot more sense. He had shit Karkat cooked before, and he didn’t know if it was because it was troll food or if Karkat just couldn’t cook for shit, but that junk was just barely over the edible qualifier.

“But that’s besides the point. The ‘food’ you have in here is hardly something to sustain yourself with. You can’t fool me on this either, I’ve double checked with Rose already, she said it’s all a load of junk,” Karkat continued.

“Well yeah man, it’s junk food, what do you expect?” Dave asked in between bites of eggs.

“I expect you to come out of your room and not fuel yourself on the human equivalent of a Juggalo diet,” he said. Dave scrapped the last of the food off of the plate before answering.

“Okay mom,” he said, Karkat huffing at him in frustration.

“What have you even been doing in here?” he asked. Dave shrugged once again, moving to flop back down on his bed.

“Sleeping,” he answered simply, hearing as Karkat walked across the room and sat down on the foot of the bed.

“Bull fucking shit, I know for a fact that humans do not need to sleep for three days straight,” Karkat said. Dave didn’t even bother lifting his head to look at him as he answered.

“We don’t need it but that don’t mean we can’t,” he said. Dave was taken off guard by the way Karkat just sighed under his breath instead of continuing to yell at him like was normal.

“You still shouldn’t,” he said, a softness to his voice he hadn't expected, and Dave had to hold back the urge to sigh as well.

“Alright sure thing, anything else you need to dictate for me?” he asked.

“As a matter of fucking fact, yes there is,” Karkat declared. Dave watched as he pulled his laptop (husktop as he insisted) out of his sylladex and made his way further up the bed. Dave pushed himself up so that he was sitting with his back against the wall, Karkat following his lead.

“You said you were going to watch a movie with me two fucking days ago, but wouldn’t you know? You never showed the fuck up,” Karkat said, pulling some troll movie player up on his laptop. Dave barely managed to fight back a frown, because he’d genuinely forgotten about that until now.

He would have at least left his room for that. He wasn’t that much of an asshole to leave Karkat waiting on purpose.

“Hey man, I’ll make it up to you. We can watch two of your shitty movies, right here right now,” he said, the starting credits beginning on the screen. Karkat hadn’t bothered to hush him yet though, so he figured talking was still good.

“Replace shitty with fucking incredible and we might have something here,” Karkat said.

“Don’t push it dude,” Dave told him. Karkat just knocked their shoulders together and shushed him. He tried to focus on the movie and not on the way Karkat left himself leaning into Dave.

It wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t even the first time he’d done something like this before. As it turns out Karkat was a pretty touchy feely guy, who would have thought. It always ended up distracting Dave though, since this just wasn’t shit he was used to. The more he thought about it, he could count on his hands the number of times he remembered being touched by someone during something other than a strife before the game started.

Less than an hour after they’d gone godtier and left on the meteor Rose had given him a hug, and he remembered the way his whole body locked up because he had no fucking idea what to do. She let go pretty quickly after that and didn’t press him, but he knew she noticed.

He’d gotten a bit better the next time it happened when Terezi engulfing him in a big boney hug. Since he’d gotten close with Karkat all these little casual touches no longer made him flinch back like he’d been shocked.

He actually blamed it on getting shocked a few times at first, since Karkat kept giving him funny looks. Godtier pajamas just rake up the static electricity, you know? 

Dave managed to pay attention to the movie enough to get the gist of everything that was going on. Karkar had forced him to sit though several lengthy explanations on troll romance as well as movies that ‘best demonstrated each concept’ since Dave had shot down the idea of him reading to show examples instead.

He kind of regretted that though. Listening to Karkat’s rendition of some god awful mom’s grocery store isle romance novel would have been several different types of amazing. Maybe he could convince him that he needed to do this again sometime.

“Well?” Karkat asked once the credits started to roll.

“I thought it was barely distinguishable from the piles of romcoms you’ve already buried me with. In fact, have we watched this one before? Was this some sort of test?” Dave asked, pretty fucking sure they hadn’t watched this one already but unable to keep himself from messing with Karkat. A scowl broke out across his face and Dave had to fight to keep from laughing at him.

“No, this was not an idiotic test! This was an incredibly original cinematic masterpiece your thinkpan’s too dense to appreciate,” Karkat snapped. This time Dave wasn’t able to keep himself from snickering at him the slightest bit.

“Alright man, I can’t appreciate art, your word is gold, now start up another one before I change my mind,” he said. Karkat huffed but did just that, scrolling through his list until he found one he deemed worthy.

“Fine, but you better pay attention this time. You want a test? We will have a god damn fucking quiz when this is over. Prepared to get schoolfed on what a true modern romance really is,” Karkat said. Dave rolled his eyes, barely noting the small as fuck smile that had managed to worm its way onto his face.

“You’re on man. I’ll ace the shit out of any test ya got,” he said, turning his attention fully on the movie now.

It didn’t stay there long, Karkat shifting from just his shoulder against Dave to his head resting on him as well. Dave could feel his thick hair against his cheek and one of his horns pressing into his jaw.

Dave felt his body lock up for half a second before forcing himself to relax before Karkat noticed. It took a bit longer to return his focus to the movie, but it was still a short enough time near the beginning that he didn’t think it would matter.

If he didn’t have this ‘test’ to pay attention for, he doubted he would have heard a single word throughout the entire movie.

He was pretty fucking thankful for that, because every time his mind would stray to how warm and calm Karkat felt against him his chest would start to ache and it was really freaking him out.

Once the credits started to roll Dave shifted so that he could actually look at Karkat, who pulled away as well. For a moment Dave regretted breaking the contact but he pushed that down fast.

“Alright man, you ready to be fucking dazzled by my basic recollection of a movie we literally just finished?” Dave said, Karkat rolling his eyes. 

“Psh, we’ll see about that,” he said.

Dave actually ended up doing pretty well on the test. He’d butchered a few names and shit but he was sure they both expected that. He was able to follow most of the love n-dangles and who was in which quadrants and that kind of shit.

By the end of the line of questioning he could tell that Karkat was trying to not let it slip that he was impressed.

“Alright, you pass. Turns out you do have a basic functioning thinkpan with a memory that lasts at least an hour. Would you like a medal?” Karkat asked.

“Dude, if you could make me a medal with that exact phrasing on it that would be sweet,” Dave told him. Karkat rolled his eyes but Dave could see the smile he was trying to keep down.

“I’ll alchemize you a fucking trophy, alright?” Karkat said.

“Fuck yes,” Dave said, Karkat definitely smiling at this point. He watched as the troll put his laptop back into his sylladex and pushed himself off of the bed.

“Well, I’m going to go pass the fuck out, because unlike some people I didn’t spend the last three days unconscious,” Karkat said pointedly. 

“Shit, those are some sick burns. Wonder who they could be for,” Dave mused.

“It’d a god damn mystery,” Karkat agreed. Dave could see him hesitate before continuing, “See you tomorrow?” he asked, an uncertainty to his voice that Dave wasn’t expecting.

“You better have my trophy man,” he said, watching as the unease in Karkat’s body melted away. 

“You’re an idiot,” he said.

“Trooophy.”

“Yes, yes, trophy. See ya,” Karkat said.

“G’night dude,” Dave said, watching him leave the room. Once he was gone and the door was shut Dave fell back on his bed with a sigh.

He couldn’t tell if he liked it when Karkat would do shit like that or if he absolutely hated it. He was pretty sure the feelings were more on the liking side than the hating one, but it always made him feel so fucking weird and uncomfortable he just wasn’t sure.

He didn’t know who to talk to about this. He didn’t want to talk about it. He was fourteen fucking years old, he should know how to react when someone decides to touch you in a completely platonic and friendly way.

He didn’t though, and it made him feel like an absolute idiot.

He just wished he knew if he was supposed to do anything back, or would that make it even more awkward? Karkat didn’t seem to think it was awkward though. Dave highly doubted he would do it otherwise.

Was he supposed to instigate it sometimes? That’s probably what a normal well-adjusted person would do after all. He wasn’t a well-adjusted person though, and the more he was around everyone else the more glaringly obvious that was. 

The next day he did end up leaving his room like he’d implied/promised Karkat. He was not disappointed by the foot tall crappy as all hell dented trophy that said ‘Turns out you do have a basic functioning thinkpan with a memory that lasts at least an hour’ etched into the plaque.

“Rose, Rose look at my trophy Rose,” Dave said, holding the bulky thing up for the girl to see. He watched as her eyes scanned over it, stopping to read the plaque.

“It’s wonderful,” she said, Dave nodding in agreement.

“Hell fucking yeah it is. This is the most wonderful shitty trophy in all of paradox space,” he declared.

“Alright, let’s stop talking about the dented hunk of fake painted gold for half a second, how does that sound? Why, I think it sounds great, thanks for asking,” Karkat interrupted. Dave could practically feel the embarrassment radiating off of him.

“No way man, everyone’s gotta see this, it’s pretty much mandatory, sorry,” he said, not actually sorry in the slightest bit. Karkat huffed but surprisingly didn’t put up much of a fight.

When Dave went around showing everyone the hells of rad trophy, he got a reaction he hadn’t expected. They all thought it was great, but that wasn’t it. He knew everyone would love it, it was amazing.

No, what he hadn’t expected was how everyone had asked if he was okay these past couple of days. Most of them were subtle about it, but it was still pretty obvious they had noticed he was MIA.

Vriska hadn’t been subtle about it in the slightest of course, nothing about her was. She straight up asked him if something was wrong and if he needed to talk to Rose or Karkat because ‘we need everyone on their A game when we reach the new session Strider, especially you.’

He’d told her, as well as everyone else for that matter that he was fine as fuck (in all ways) and to look at his cool trophy.

He wasn’t lying either. Sometimes this shit just happened where he needed to hole away for a few days, it wasn’t a big deal.

Beforehand, he would tell John and Rose and Jade that he’d been off doing shit with Bro or that the cable bill hadn’t been paid or something like that. He didn’t have those excuses anymore so it was more noticeable, but it wasn’t anything new. This wasn’t even the first time he’d done it on the meteor. It was just that the last time everyone was still busy getting to know each other and he wasn’t really hanging out with Karkat yet.

It was just weird that everyone noticed. Rose and Karkat made sense, since he was always hanging with Karkat and when he wasn’t he was bothering Rose, but he hadn’t thought anyone else would.

It was fucking strange that everyone seemed to… care?

He pushed it to the back of his mind, going about the rest of his day by having the mayor show him the new district in Can Town and having Karkat whine at him to stop carrying that piece of shit trophy around already.

That was pretty much how he spent the new few days as well, sans Karkat complaining about the trophy. He was keeping it in his sylladex now since it was just easier than holding it all the time. That option was pretty temping though, since it got such a great reaction out of Karkat.

He managed to keep busy enough most of the time to hold off the thoughts attempting to trickle in at the back of his mind. The worst times were when he was trying to sleep and he was alone with nothing but his thoughts. He put that off as much as he could, trying to stay on the computer or something until he was close to passing out. It was pretty hard when the internet hadn’t updated in over a year though.

When he did let those thoughts in he had no idea what to make of them. So, the people on this rock weren’t total uncaring assholes? Big fucking surprise, he’d already known that for a long as fuck time now. Even Vriska tried, sometimes even too much.

He liked it, because why wouldn’t he? He cared about them too, after all. If Karkat disappeared for a couple days of course he’d show up at his door with some disgusting troll sludge Kanaya had cooked up for him and make sure his self-destructive ass was okay.

So why the fuck did it bother him so much?!

Dave pushed himself out of bed, because like hell could he sleep right now. It felt like his skin was crawling and his legs wouldn’t sit still. He tried to wear out the energy by pacing around his room, but it wasn’t helping at all. He felt like he was getting even more worked up, if anything.

Pulling his cape on, he started out of his room. He didn’t really like to wander around the meteor alone at night, what with the clown lurking in the air vents and everything, but to hell with it right now. He highly doubted getting jumped by a clown would not end up just or heroic. Fuck, maybe the shock of dying would get his body to cut it the fuck out.

He’d died for dumber reasons, honestly.

Dave wasn’t sure how long he ended up walking around for, at least a couple of hours before he finally felt like he could start heading back and maybe pass out for a few hours. He was still a bit twitchy but he wasn’t quite as wound up anymore and when he collapsed onto his bed it seemed to do the trick.

A worried expression was on Karkat’s face the next morning (afternoon? Fuck, it doesn’t matter, they’re in the god damn furthest ring time doesn’t mean shit) when Dave woke up much later than was normal for him. He just brushed him off and asked him what was for breakfast, he was staved.

These late night walks started to become a bit of a habit after that though. Every couple of nights he would get that antsy feeling under his skin and he’d have to move around until he was positively exhausted before he could finally come back and get some sleep.

If Karkat noticed something was wrong, he didn’t say anything.

Shutting himself in his room seemed to be a thing that happened more and more often as well. Still not too much, but every couple of weeks to a month he’d end up locked in his room for two days until Karkat showed up at his door with food.

He never let it get to day three anymore. He never pressed him on what was wrong either, which was probably the thing Dave appreciated the most.

Because honestly? He had no fucking idea.

All in all he was happy here, more so than he’d ever been back home, so he didn’t get what the deal was and he definitely couldn’t explain it if someone was to ask him.

During one of his late night walks he tried to run through his head what it could possibly be. Did he miss John and Jade? Yes, of course he did, but that wasn’t it. Did he miss home? Fuck no. Was the clown doing subtle chucklevoodoos to make him act like this? Possible, needs further investigating.

The next day he hadn’t actually ended up sleeping at all when he slumped into Can Town. He could see Karkat scrutinizing him but just ignored him, instead silently adding an extension onto the local mall.

“Okay, what the ever loving fuck?” Karkat snapped after a moment.

“Sup man?” Dave asked, not having enough energy to go on some long winded rant.

“Sup? Sup’s with you walking in here like you’re fucking braindead and not saying a god damn word?” he asked and Dave shrugged, not turning away from his work on the mall as he answered.

“Not much. Just didn’t get much sleep last night is all,” he said. Karkat huffed and stood up.

“Then you should be sleeping now, idiot,” he insisted. Dave waved him away.

“I’m fine dude, chillax,” he said.

“No, you’re coming with me,” Karkat said, grabbing Dave by the arm and pulling him to his feet. He let the troll do as he wished, because it wasn’t just last night he’d had trouble sleeping. This whole fucking week he’d had to walk for at least an hour each night and yesterday not getting any sleep at all was like the nail in the coffin.

He thought Karkat would either keep pulling him by his arm or just let go. Instead, he let his hand fall until it was cupped around Dave’s.

He didn’t say anything and Karkat didn’t comment on it either. Instead he just silently led him like that back to Dave’s room, not letting go until they were inside.

He’d gotten a lot more used to these kinds of things but it still made his chest ache when Karkat would do stuff like this and there was always that twinge of disappointment when he would pull away.

“Now get the fuck to sleep,” Karkat demanded.

“You gonna read me a bedtime story?” Dave joked, Karkat rolling his eyes and pushing Dave closer to the bed.

“Fuck no, you’d probably pass out before I got to the end anyway,” he said. Dave chuckled, sitting down on the bed and nodding.

“That’s kind of the point dude,” he explained, Karkat frowning at that. 

“That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

“I’ll teach you the art of bedtime stories later. I’m think I’m gonna pass the fuck out,” Dave said. He could practically feel the way Karkat rolled his eyes.

“Of fucking course you are, you were basically asleep on your feet,” he said. Dave ignored his comment, instead lying down and pulling the blanket up over him.

“Goodnight man,” he said, moving to rest his shades on the side table. Karkat seemed to hesitate for a moment before answering.

“Yeah, yeah, get some fucking rest already,” he said. Dave could hear him walking towards the door now, having already closed his eyes. Jesus fuck he was tired. He thought he might have been able to power through it for the day but that was clearly not going to be the case.

There was still an underlying fear in Dave that he would end up thinking of something and cause his body to get all jittery again, so instead he just focused on the warmth in his hand from where Karkat had held it.

He’d liked the way it had felt. A lot. More than he probably should.

Karkat could get his mind off of the shit that was always fucking with him and make him smile and laugh and he was always worried about him when he’d lock himself away and he didn’t make a big deal out of contact or make Dave feel like it was wrong or any of that shit.

When he fell asleep that ache in his chest was back, but it was a lot better than the jittery unease that he’d had recently.

Once he woke up Karkat didn’t comment on what had happened earlier. Dave was thankful for that, since that meant he wouldn’t press him on why he hadn’t been sleeping in the first place.

The next few months were relatively peaceful. Every time Dave would have a sleepless night Karkat seemed to jump on that shit like a hawk, forcing him to get the rest he missed.

A couple of times he held Dave’s hand again when he led him back to his room. It was almost tempting enough to pretend to be exhausted to get him to do it more often.

Dave was starting to freak out over how much he liked when Karkat would hold his hand or lean against him during a movie or sit close enough so that their knees would touch when Dave was showing him how to mix or some other activity.

Being around Karkat made him feel happy and safe and it was so unlike what his life had been like before the game he didn’t know what to do about it. He had no fucking idea what was happening and he couldn’t talk to anyone about it because the only person he wanted to talk to about this kind of thing was Karkat.

It was during one of his night walks when he started thinking about it and how it was related to just… everything.

He was happier now than he’d ever been before, and yeah, a whole fucking lot of that was because of Karkat.

He was smiling and shit a lot more, not really keeping up with his poker face. It still unnerved him sometimes when he would, because this wasn’t shit he’d ever done before. He never let himself smile or laugh or play around or just be fucking happy because Bro always said that wasn’t cool shit.

Dave could only imagine how fucking disappointed Bro would be if he could see him now, losing all of his cool over some guy he liked.

Some guy he liked.

Some guy he…

Fuck.

Dave could feel his body lock up as he processed that last thought. Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ He leaned against the wall, rubbing at his eyes under his shades and trying to calm the hell down.

This wasn’t how shit was supposed to happen. Something had to have gone wrong somewhere because he wasn’t like that. Karkat was great, his best bro but that was it. That was all he wanted it to be, too.

He couldn’t like him he fucking couldn’t oh god what was he going to do Bro was going to _kill him._

Dave didn’t even notice how much he was shaking as he started running off blindly down the dark corridor. He didn’t stop until he was deep into a part of the meteor he’d never explored before. None of the lights were on and he was tripping over old wires and machines every couple of steps.

Eventually he managed to feel around until he found some sort of spot where the machinery didn’t quite go all the way to the wall, making his way into the crawlspace and trying to calm his panicked breath.

He just needed some time alone to sort himself out. A couple of days. It’d suck without the stash of snacks in his room but Karkat would know where to find him if he was there and he needed more than two days this time. He’d gone longer without anything, and that was before he became immortal.

Bro had prepared him for this kind of shit.

It might have fucked up everything else about him, but that didn’t matter.

He’d be fine.

He was always fucking fine.

\---

Dave was doing his disappearing act again, and Karkat was pacing around in the nutritionblock as Rose cooked up something for him to bring to the douche.

“Are you sure you have no fucking idea what gets him like this? I mean, you’ve known him the longest, did he do this shit back before?” Karkat asked. The first couple of times it had been pretty few and far between, and honestly not something you could blame someone for after everything they’d all been though. Especially Dave. As both a time player and a knight he sort of had a shitty hand dealt to him.

That didn’t even include the stuff he’d gone through before the game even started. He didn’t know much, Dave didn’t like talking about it, but there were snippets here and there filled in by Rose.

As time went on though, it seemed to be happening more and more often. Then Karkat noticed his sleep getting all fucked up and it just seemed to be getting worse.

“And you by and large have been spending the most time with him. As for before the game, I’m not sure. I had noticed that he would go silent for days at a time every few months, but there was always an excuse. If he was telling the truth, I have no clue,” Rose said, placing some of the weird pale noodles she’d cooked onto a plate before dripping this bright red sauce over it.

“Should I just ask him about it already? I’ve been avoiding it because I don’t want to freak him out but this is starting to fucking worry me,” Karkat asked. Rose raised an eyebrow as she poured a drink for Dave.

“Starting to?” she asked and Karkat rolled his eyes.

“Either answer the question or hand over the food Lalonde,” he demanded. A bit luckily she did both, speaking to him while she passed him the plate and glass.

“I’d try to feel him out and see if he’s up to it. I do think it is something that will need to be pressed soon though,” she said. Karkat nodded, starting towards Dave’s room.

Rose was smart and she knew Dave well, being his ‘sister’ and oldest friend here. When he would get like this, Karkat would usually talk to her and Kanaya to try to figure out if there was something he was doing wrong or how to make it just less horrible.

So far, Dave really seemed to appreciate him bringing food and hanging out for a while. He might try to steer the conversation towards what was going on with him this time, but it would depend on Dave for how well that would go.

Reaching his door, Karkat started kicking at it like he normally did.

“Dave! Wake the fuck up, I have a plate of those weird noodles and I’m not standing out here forever because they smell fucking strange,” he called into the room. He expected Dave to either groan at him or tell him to stop disrespecting the noodles or some other such irritating and flippant response.

He did not expect silence.

“Dave! Come on and open the fucking door, my hands are full!” he yelled. Once again there was no response and he started kicking the door harder.

“Fucking hell Strider, answer me!”

He could feel the dread start to pull in his digestive sac as the silence continued to drag on.

“Dave?” he tried, worry starting to seep into his voice. Shifting to cradle the drink in his elbow so he had a hand free, he opened the door himself.

Walking into the room, he placed the items down on the desk before taking a good look around. Dave’s blanket was half on the floor, showing the clear lack of a body in the bed. Looking around, there was a distinct absence of one human male that should be there.

“Dave?” he called again, walking over to the bed and running his hand over it.

It was really fucking cold.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, Dave!” he yelled, running out of the room. He had no fucking idea where to look first, instead running back to the nutritionblock.

“Rose! Fucking hell, fuck Rose, he’s gone! I don’t know where he went but he wasn’t in his room and it seemed like he hadn’t been in a while and oh fuck where is he?!” he ranted, clearly startling her. She pushed himself up from where she’d been eating and motioned for him to stop.

“Karkat, take a breath and explain to me as calmly as you can what is going on,” she said, and Karkat tried his best to follow the instructions. 

“Dave wasn’t in his room when I went in. I checked and his bed was cold as fuck I don’t think he’s been in there for a while,” he said. A dark look fell over her face as she nodded and started out of the room.

“I’ll let Kanaya know so she can help us look. Maybe start in the bathrooms, this could all be a misunderstanding and we happened to miss him,” she said and Karkat nodded as he followed her out.

“Yeah, yeah okay, if you run into anyone else let them know too. I’ll do the same,” he said, starting off in the direction of the closest bathroom while Rose went to Kanaya’s room.

Pretty much everyone sans Gamzee stayed in the main part of the meteor they’d cleared out, so it didn’t take long until everyone knew what was going on and joined in on the search. Karkat kept trying to send Dave messages over Pesterchum but it said he hadn’t been on for the past two days.

When hours started to pass and no one had come across him it was getting more and more difficult for Karkat to try to stay calm about this. He hadn’t been doing too good of a job on that since the beginning, either.

He should have checked on him sooner. He should have asked him what was wrong sooner. He should have done something and now he had no idea where he was or why he’d run off or if this was his fault or when they’d find him or fucking anything.

He had no idea how long they’d been searching when he received a message from Kanaya.

GA: Karkat We Have Been Searching All Night You Should Take A Break  
CG: WE CAN’T STOP NOW.  
CG: WE STILL HAVEN’T FOUND HIM.  
GA: Karkat I Know You Are Very Worried About Dave But You Need Your Rest Too  
CG: YOU DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND.  
CG: HE HASN’T BEEN IN HIS ROOM THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME  
CG: HE HASN’T BEEN EATING OR PROBABLY SLEEPING AT ALL  
CG: HE COULD BE FUCKING HURT SOMEWHERE AND I’M NOT STOPING UNTIL I FIND HIS ASS AND DRAG IT BACK TO SAFETY.  
GA: I Had A Feeling You Would Say Something Like This  
GA: Just Try Not To Hurt Yourself  
GA: Everyone Else Is Still Going To Help  
GA: But We Will Be Going On Shifts  
GA: If You Would Like To As Well You Are More Than Welcomed  
CG: THANKS BUT I’M FINE.  
CG: YOU GUYS SHOULD GET SOME REST THOUGH, YEAH.  
GA: Hell Be Okay Karkat  
CG: I’LL KNOW THAT WHEN I FIND HIM.

Karkat returned his husktop to his sylladex as he continued onward. He was getting into parts of the meteor that had been less and less explored. Eventually he ended up somewhere that he was pretty sure if anyone, only Gamzee had been.

It was really fucking dark down here. He could see pretty well, but humans needed light to see, and Dave was always wearing those dumb as fuck shades that made his vision even shittier than it normally was. If he was around here there were so many fucking ways he could get hurt and while he didn’t think he’d have a just or heroic death by tripping, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be hurt and in pain or stuck or something.

“Dave!” he called into the room, it echoing back against the metal walls. When there was no answer he wasn’t able to hold back a sigh as he continued forward.

“Dave! Fuck Dave, where are you?” he asked the empty room, his voice starting to feel raw from running around yelling so much. That was pretty fucking impressive, all he ever did was basically run around yelling.

Scanning the room one last time, he turned to leave when he caught something in the corner of his eye. A small swatch of red amidst the greys of the labs.

Attempting not to get his hopes up, he slowly started over, prepared for it to be something else and have to keep looking. If it was Dave, he would have answered him, right?

As he drew forward, he could see the small red spot was attached to something, his bloodpusher stopping when he could see all of it. Of him.

He was hunched in on himself and he didn’t seem to be awake and for one horrifying second Karkat wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.

As soon as he saw his shoulders shift the slightest bit, signifying he was alive the fear that had frozen him in his spot broke.

“Dave!” Karkat shrieked, watching him jolt awake, fear plastered all over his face as he looked around frantically. Karkat knew he probably couldn’t see shit and ran forward, dropping to his knees as soon as he was close enough and pulling Dave to him.

“No! No fuck I’m sorry please!” Dave yelled, attempting to fight his way out of Karkat’s grasp. He ignored his struggle, just holding him tighter and shaking from relief.

“Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was? Don’t you ever pull this shit again I swear to fuck Dave,” Karkat said. He could feel Dave stop panicking and freeze up in his arms.

“Wait. I… Karkat?” he asked, confusion and fear tinting his voice. Karkat snorted and nodded, still refusing to let go.

“Who fucking else you giant ass?” he answered. Dave seemed to practically melt in his arms at that.

“Fuck, oh fuck I’m sorry,” Dave muttered into his chest. Karkat just sighed and started running one of his hands lightly up and down his back as he felt him start to shake. He wasn’t all that sure if he was crying or not.

“Just don’t do it again,” he said softly. Dave was shaking his head now as he wrapped his arms around Karkat’s torso.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he continued, voice cracking now. Karkat was pretty sure he was crying at this point and fuck what had happened to him?

“It’s okay. Shoosh, it’s fine, you’re okay,” he tried, Dave holding on even tighter.

Dave didn’t say anything else and Karkat just shifted so that they were both in a more comfortable position. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, just letting Dave cry into his chest while he tried to murmur calming things and ran a hand through his hair. Eventually Dave pulled away enough to attempt to look at him in the face, but Karkat was pretty damn sure he still couldn’t see shit.

“I… fuck, can we pretend this didn’t happen?” he asked, his voice still shaky and uneven as fuck. God, just when Karkat thought he couldn’t get any more pitiful, too.

“Fuck no. We’re talking about this,” he said, Dave deflating at his answer. Before he could try to reassure him it was okay again a shock ran through him when he remembered everyone else still looking.

“Shit, we’re going to talk about this, but I need to let everyone know I found you first,” he said, pulling his husktop out of his sylladex. It was hard with Dave still pretty much in his lap and sitting in this tiny as fuck cranny, but he could see the confusion that passed over Dave’s face much better in the light of the screen.

“What? Why?” he asked, and Karkat rolled his eyes as he sent Kanaya and quick message saying ‘I FOUND HIM. HE’S FINE YOU ALL CAN GET SOME SLEEP’ before closing the husktop and putting it back in his sylladex.

“Because we thought you were in your room for two days and then when it turned out you weren’t we were fucking worried,” he explained.

“Sorry,” Dave muttered again, slumping further in on himself. God damn, Karkat had never seen him like this before, and honestly it was both scary as fuck and long overdue. He was pretty sure this was the first time Dave had cried since the game even happened, and that in and of itself was messed up.

“It’s okay, just… tell me what happened,” Karkat said, very tempted to draw Dave back into another hug. He looked so fucking fragile right now though, he was afraid if he made a wrong move he’d just break.

“Nothing, I just freaked out about nothing,” Dave said, leaning forward and pressing his head into Karkat’s shoulder.

“I doubt that,” Karkat said, letting his hand run through Dave’s hair again.

“It’s nothing please just drop it,” he muttered into his shoulder. Karkat sighed, because he didn’t want to push Dave but he couldn’t let this go either.

“You know you can talk to me,” he said, feeling Dave nod against him.

“I know, it’s just… I thought Bro was gonna freak about something,” Dave told him. Karkat frowned, wanting to pull away to get a look at his face but deciding against it.

“Dave, he’s dead,” Karkat said as gently as he could manage.

“That’s why it’s nothing,” Dave answered. Karkat wasn’t sure what to say for a moment. He knew Dave had issues with his guardian, but he hadn’t realized they were this bad.

“It made you like this, so even if he’s not around anymore it’s still something, okay?” Karkat said.

“Karkat I don’t want to talk about it,” Dave said. Karkat sighed and reluctantly nodded. He wasn’t going to force him to do anything, after all. He just wanted to fucking help him.

“Okay, just please don’t fucking scare me like this again,” he said. Dave had managed to find the hand that Karkat didn’t have in his hair and held onto it lightly.

“Why do you care about me?” he muttered, catching Karkat off guard.

“What?” he asked, not even able to comprehend the question at first.

“Why does everyone seem to care about what happens to me? I’m _really_ fucked up Karkat, I don’t fucking get why you all bother,” Dave said. Karkat just stared at him as he tried to comprehend just how fucking wrong that was.

“Why? Holy fuck Dave, we’re all screwed up, why the hell would that make us care about you any less?” he said. Dave was shaking his head and continued to hide his face in Karkat’s shoulder.

“It’s different though. I was raised for this fucking game, I don’t know how to be a normal god damn person,” he said. Karkat couldn’t resist rolling his eyes at that.

“Dave. My entire _race_ was sculpted for the game by a douchebag with a cueball for a head. None of us know how to be ‘normal’ okay?” he said. Dave didn’t say anything at that, and Karkat sighed, squeezing his hand tighter.

“We can figure it out together. But only if you let us help you,” he added. When Dave continued to stay silent, Karkat was worried that maybe he said the wrong thing and just fucked everything us even more than it already was. After a few unnerving minutes Dave sighed and pulled away slightly, still keeping a hold on Karkat’s hand.

“Think you could maybe start by helping me back to my room? I can’t see shit down here,” Dave said and Karkat wasn’t able to keep his relief from bubbling out in a nervous laugh.

“That’s because you’re wearing those fucking shades, asshole,” Karkat said, shifting and helping Dave to his feet as well. He could see Dave lift his free hand up to touch his shades, as if he’d forgotten they were there for a moment.

“Huh, oh yeah that’ll do it. Gonna leave em on though, let you get your max helping mode in,” Dave said. Karkat rolled his eyes and started to carefully lead Dave out of the room, trying his best to keep him from tripping over wires and spare parts.

It took a while for them to get to a point where Dave could walk on his own without the risk of him heading straight into a wall. Karkat thought that maybe once he could see he’d let go of his hand, but that wasn’t the case.

They managed to make it all the way to Dave’s room without running into anybody. Karkat wondered if they all had passed out when they found out he was safe or if they thought it would be best to give him space until they said it was okay. When they entered the room Karkat caught sight of the noodles he’d left on the desk hours ago.

“I can go heat that up for you, if you want,” he offered, pointing towards the plate. Dave shook his head, still not letting go of Karkat’s hand as he made his way over to his bed.

“It’s fine, I’m not hungry,” he said, sitting down. Karkat was tempted to pull his hand away so he could cross his arms and complete the glare he was shooting Dave.

“Don’t give me that shit. It’s been almost three days since you’ve eaten anything,” Karkat said. Dave sighed, hunching in on himself again.

“Look, I know, just… I don’t know, grab sometime from my closet?” he said, but Karkat still wasn’t convinced.

“It’ll only take a second, I’ll be right back,” he insisted but Dave was shaking his head and holding onto Karkat’s hand like a lifeline.

“Please don’t leave me alone right now,” he muttered under his breath and Karkat’s resolve broke.

“Fine. Let me grab some of the junk you have in your closet then because it’d better than nothing,” he gave in. Dave nodded, finally letting go of his hand so that Karkat could go grab a few packets of chips and snack cakes. He also managed to find a bottle of juice in there for Dave to drink.

Karkat sat down next to him while Dave slowly devoured what he brought over. Once he was finished he placed the wrappers on the table next to the bed. Dave was leaning against him and while they’d sat like that a million times before this was the first time Dave had initiated it. Karkat hesitated for a moment before shifting them around so that they were both lying down instead.

“Is this okay?” Dave asked, his head still tentatively against his shoulder. Karkat nodded, shifting his arm so that it was wrapped around Dave, holding him closer.

“Yes, it’s okay dummy,” he said, feeling Dave relax against him at that.

“Karkat?” he muttered after a moment.

“Hmm?”

“Thanks,” Dave said. Karkat pulled the blanket up over them as he answered.

“Go to sleep, Dave,” he said.

“Yeah, okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I lost about 20,000 words from my last nano, so in my despair I wrote this. If anyone doesn't know, scrapple is a type of breakfast food that's make of pork and like, fried in a pan. It's good. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and as always please let me know what you think.


End file.
